Ides of March

On his way to the Theatre of Pompey (where he would be assassinated), Caesar saw a seer who had foretold that harm would come to him not later than the Ides of March. Caesar joked, "Well, the Ides of March have come", to which the seer replied "Ay, they have come, but they are not gone."

In keeping with the Ides of March, these are just some of the headlines for today:

- The king of Bahrain has declared a three-month state of emergency, state TV reports, following weeks of pro-democracy protests in the kingdom.

- Egypt's Interior Minister Mansour al-Issawi has dissolved its internal security agency, which had been blamed for decades of human rights abuses.

- The situation at the quake-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in northeastern Japan ''has worsened considerably,'' the Institute for Science and International Security said in a statement released Tuesday.

- Libya's revolutionary leadership is pressing western powers to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi and launch military strikes against his forces to protect rebel-held cities from the threat of bloody assault.

- Muammar Gaddafi's forces pushed relentlessly eastwards toward Libyan rebels' stronghold of Benghazi on Tuesday, while world powers wrangled over a draft resolution to impose a no-fly zone.

To quote Private Hudson from Aliens, "We're in some pretty serious shit pal!"